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Paragraph one is where the fourth-grader sets down his main topic sentence. If the essay is about "The Importance of School Rules," then he will write down the main idea of the essay: what school rules are and why schools have them. The opening sentence captures and contains the thrust of the entire first paragraph and summarizes the content of the following three paragraphs. This paragraph should be no more than five or six sentences long, and each sentence should link with the one after it.

If the topic is not assigned, you will need to choose your own topic. You might probably stuck on this step if you have a wide range to choose from. Take your time and keep these pieces of advice in mind to select the most appropriate topic.

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Flipping channels, you come across a music awards show. You hear the announcer say one of your favorite stars growing up, Smiley Virus, is set to perform next. As Smiley takes the stage, you're completely shocked. She comes out half-dressed in some kind of stuffed animal costume, and just keeps doing the same spastic dance moves over and over again. It just keeps getting more and more bizarre. It's obvious she's trying to be 'edgy,' but she just looks like a lunatic. As the camera pans the crowd, no one is sure how to react toward her 'cutting edge' performance.

For now, I’m posting several expository writing pieces that my students have written to various topics. Some of these were written as their choice of 3 writing prompts, and others were written on the students’ last writing benchmark. The benchmark prompt was the prompt that our students were given last year on their STAAR test (our official standardized test–for those of you who don’t live in Texas).